School Rift Brings Out Strong Vote

October 12, 1989|By Karen M. Thomas and Milita Garza.

Outside of South Loop Elementary School, Essie Mason-Purnell looked on Wednesday as a steady stream of voters arrived, some walking under the Roosevelt Road overpass from their Dearborn Park homes, others coming in bus shuttles from nearby public housing to cast their ballots.

``It`s all about trust,`` said Mason-Purnell, a candidate for one of the six parent seats on the South Loop local school council. ``This isn`t something we can run away from. We have to face it. We have to have some people about the business of healing. It is spilling over to the children.``

By day`s end, 1,037 residents had voted at South Loop, 1212 S. Dearborn St.

The school has been the scene of an ongoing clash for the last two years, a clash rooted in class conflict and distrust, pitting affluent Dearborn Park parents against those from nearby public housing.

Wednesday`s election did what a federal mediator, the Urban League, school officials, outside education watchdog groups and even the parents themselves have failed to accomplish in the school`s two-year-history-the creation of a bona fide parents group.

But it will take much more than just the local school council election to heal the growing rift between the haves and have-nots. And it will take even more to unravel a thorny, virtually no-win compromise worked out by school officials when they created boundaries for the new school.

The compromise, which places Hilliard Homes children at a branch school until 3d grade and which has been made more complicated by an upscale housing boom in the area, ensures that the school will be overcrowded by next September.

``This community is constantly growing. I fault the board. They avoided this for so long. How can this building hold the capacity? And the community is constantly growing,`` said Joyce Norfleet, a parent candidate. ``And the diversion worked. Now they drop it in the laps of the local school council.`` One parent, who asked not to be identified, said that the tension has already filtered down to her child. The 2d grader came home one day and announced there were ``Hilliards`` at the school, and while she did not know what that meant, she insisted to her mother that they were bad.

``I put her in the car and I drove her there. I told her these are high-rises just like the ones we live in. Hilliard is not a person, it is a place, a community. It is not bad,`` the parent said.

With two board attorneys, an impartial judge from Project LEAP, a citizens organization dedicated to fair elections, and numerous other officials and outsiders dropping by all day, the election at South Loop, unlike other attempts by the school to form a parents group, went virtually without incident.

``We`ve had a particular interest in this school given the controversy over the boundaries,`` said James Lucien, who works for the Urban League, which has monitored previous attempts to form a parents group at the school.

``A lot of these problems should be resolved by the local school council.``

But on Wednesday, the parents meant business.

With 32 parents and community residents running for the six parent seats and two community seats, two slates of candidates-one endorsed by the South Loop Neighbors Association and the other made up of candidates from Hilliard Homes and other neighborhoods-turned out a high number of voters.

Throughout the day, a yellow school bus and a van with Antioch Baptist Church printed on it, made numerous trips back and forth from high-rises along South Michigan Avenue and Hilliard Homes, bringing scores of voters.

At least one elderly voter had a small card that held the names of one of the slates.

``We can`t stop people from donating the buses,`` said Pat Milton, a parent who lives on South Michigan Avenue.

And, despite a pressure fracture in his back, parent candidate Michael Gipson hobbled to the polls to cast his vote.

``The best thing to happen is that something is formed,`` Gipson said about the election. ``The bottom line is the building was built for those kids, not the adults.``

Of the 1,037 people who cast votes, 659 were community residents, 335 parents and 43 teachers. Shortly after the close of the polls at 7 p.m. two teachers were declared winners for council seats.

``I truly hope that the parents will come in with a very positive attitude. The past is past. I know there are wounds, but I hope that is in the past because the children are going to suffer,`` said Diane Hopkins, a science teacher who won a seat.

The second teacher elected is Shelton Flowers, a gym teacher at both the branch and main school.

While parents and community residents came in waves to vote, teachers quietly cast their votes and returned to their classrooms for parent conferences.

``I wouldn`t say that teachers are excited by this,`` said Lydia Williams, a 5th grade teacher. ``It`s more like `let`s see what will happen.` It`s kind of a sad story, really, the haves against the have-nots.``